London Mayor sets out revised housing strategy for capital

London Mayor Boris Johnson has unveiled ambitious plans to deliver 55,000 new affordable homes by 2015 as part of the capital’s revised housing strategy.

As well as outlining how he will use new housing powers set out in the Localism Act, the strategy confirmed the mayor’s proposal that a significant number of the new dwellings will be family-sized and designed to his larger space standards.

As part of this blueprint, the mayor has promised to unlock stalled schemes like Greenwich Peninsula and upgrade more than 40,000 council homes to meet the Decent Homes standard.

The revised housing strategy contains a number of key commitments to boost construction, including unlocking public land for development and helping developers on stalled projects with funding to kick start schemes.

He has pledged closer working with boroughs and other major public landowners to bring forward land for development. He said he is committed to having a clear exit strategy for all landholdings transferred to the Greater London Authority (GLA) as part of the devolution settlement. He will publish details of GLA landholdings and will launch a London Development Panel to fast-track procurement, inviting other public landholders to use the panel.

He said: “This strategy offers us a golden opportunity to push on full steam ahead to deliver more affordable homes and create over a hundred thousand much-needed jobs in the process. With £3bn secured from the Government, new powers and affordable homes delivery at record levels, we have solid foundations on which to build and cement London’s housing future.”

The mayor delivered around 40,000 homes in the 2008-11, and has insisted that his administration will deliver around 55,000 affordable homes in the 2011-15 investment round. This includes around 16,000 affordable homes in 2011-12, the most in a financial year since the mid 1990s.